Fleet Defense Fighters in The United States Navy
In the 1950s, the United States Navy led an unsuccessful F6D Missileer project. Later it launched the development of a large F-111B fleet air defense fighter, but this project was cancelled too. Finally, the role was assigned to the F-14 Tomcat, carrying AIM-54 Phoenix missiles. This aircraft was well-capable of fighter-to-fighter combat, as well as air interdiction missions, so it does not exactly fit the "pure" interceptor niche. Both the fighter and the missile were retired in 2006.
Read more about this topic: Interceptor Aircraft
Famous quotes containing the words fleet, defense, fighters, united, states and/or navy:
“They ... fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
—Barry Goldwater (b. 1909)
“O can’t you see, brother—
Death’s a congested road for fighters now,
and hero a cheap label.”
—C.D. Andrews (1913–1992)
“The United Nations cannot do anything, and never could; it is not an animate entity or agent. It is a place, a stage, a forum and a shrine ... a place to which powerful people can repair when they are fearful about the course on which their own rhetoric seems to be propelling them.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“Our citizenship in the United States is our national character. Our citizenship in any particular state is only our local distinction. By the latter we are known at home, by the former to the world. Our great title is AMERICANS—our inferior one varies with the place.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that the trade of the whole country will be benefitted thereby, and the men running the ships will of course make a reasonable profit.... Unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)